^ Interesting. Manchester is trying to grow bigger, it seems.
Northern France is much of the same atmosphere. Historically blue collar, though the economy has to change anyway, cause old industry like coal mining is completely gone from our countries, which is a good thing, you got to acknowledge.
By the way, there might nonetheless be some revival of some textile industry locally, as this sector is actually showing some interesting innovation, especially on the luxury segment of it. I won't go to far into details, but for instance, they're even inventing panties for women to get rid of their tampons or sanitary napkins these days. Lol, some of their new stuff is quite astonishing, as they try to make more money for their region. That's cool.
There's a lot of red brick over there, probably because they didn't have so much limestone, while we've had plenty here in the Paris region subsoil.
There's nonetheless some bits of old ornamented architecture from the old northern French bourgeoisie, in the same style as that of Belgium.
You'll see it in that video of Lille (by night ; a daylight video would be more honest, I think).
• Video Link
High-rise buildings are still shy, though, because the French generally don't like it when you go up too high upon their heads.
Here's some more from northern France as a whole, more casually.
• Video Link
It's much like the UK and the Benelux, with a lot of manufacturing history. Some farming too.